by Mark Tufo
“Good luck and Godspeed,” I told them all before I headed to the bridge.
The command center was tense. “Attention on deck,” Tracy announced as I came aboard.
“As you were.” I walked evenly to my seat.
Tracy was piloting, Fields was on weapons, Pender was on the new sliding console. Had Beckert from engineering on a monitor off to my right. Lane was on comm and damage monitoring. BT was buckled in to my left, I guess he was my moral support.
“One hour until we enter Progerian airspace, General,” Tracy said.
I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that would simultaneously be the quickest and slowest hour I would ever spend. I had time to think, not about my decision–that was made, just everything else. It occurred to me how the next twenty-four hours would be dissected and analyzed by historians from multiple races and species for countless millennia to come. Would they focus on what I’d done wrong, the many mistakes and blunders I’d made, how I’d brought both races to the brink of destruction? Or would someone record the unfailingly heroic and valiant efforts of my men and women, their sacrifice, their faith, their fate. Would this be a doomed venture from which I somehow stumbled into defeat from the edge of Victory? Or would we strike so hard, so savagely, so relentlessly, and so fortuitously, that the Progerians could do little but cede? It is a strange sensation to know you are standing on the precipice of great change, of things that are meant to affect so many. We would be sending out tidal ripples that could topple dynasties. I wish I could say that I wasn’t concerned with how history would view me, but who wouldn’t be? If we fail miserably, would I be the reckless fool that heralded in the destruction of man, or would I be the vindictive madman that forced the end come hell or high water? Could we aboard this ship be seen as heroes across the ages? Or would our actions become a footnote; nothing more than a cautionary lesson or worse, a mere legend, a myth. In my mind, there was no room for my crew in the middle.
“Ten minutes,” Tracy announced.
“When the hell did that happen?” I asked, coming back to the present.
“She’s been announcing that every ten minutes,” BT told me.
I said nothing, but as she ticked off each subsequent minute, my grip on my armrests became painful to my fingers and forearms.
“Two minutes.”
Computer models had shown a one in three chance we would emerge to a flurry of military activity from possibly four war ships.
“One minute.”
“Your seatbelt, man. Put your damn seatbelt on.” BT said. “Gonna look like a damn fool if you go skidding across the floor as soon as the action starts.”
“Wonder how that would play out in a text book. If we win I’d have that part edited out.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.
“Fifteen seconds.”
I had a strong desire to crawl up into my stomach and visit my balls, which had gone in at two minutes. I wondered what kind of visual that would make.
“Ten, nine, eight…”
BT looked over at me. “You got this.” And gave me maybe one of the weakest thumbs up I’d ever seen, accompanied by his pasty gray complexion. It was not the boost I’d been looking for.”
“One.”
We popped out of our buckle. I braced for multiple incomings.
“Clear!” Lane shouted.
“Launch the Rodeeshians,” I ordered. Once they were away I had Tracy bring us to the other side of the planet. “Unleash it, unleash everything.”
Fields’ hands were a blur as he fired missiles, launched bombs, shot photon rays and blasted lasers. The ship thrummed with energy as we rained an arsenal’s worth of destruction upon the Aradinia surface.
“They’ve launched counter measures,” Lane announced. “We have ships incoming.”
“How many?”
“Dozen at least. Baker’s dozen.”
“Thirteen, you mean?” I asked and she nodded.
I wasn’t expecting that number; half that was too many. “How long?”
“They’ll be in weapons range in under five.”
“That’s twelve minutes faster than we calculated,” I said aloud.
“We have impact.” Fields shouted. “Three cities are burning.”
“Main screen,” I shouted. Lane immediately placed everything she was viewing on her console for all of us to see. Looked like we were playing a suicidal game of “kill the kid with the ball.” It was something damn near every male juvenile had done. Whoever has the ball gets enthusiastically tackled. Weird thing is, some other kid will inevitably grab the cursed ball and run with it, knowing his ultimate fate. Must be about the release of aggression or something. But this time it was incoming ships, missiles, and rays of all differing colors, and being tackled meant death. There was a trajectory overlay showing where everything was headed, and you guessed correctly, everything was coming straight for the Sentinel.
“Holy shit!” BT said it, but I was thinking it.
“Can we survive that?” I asked the room.
“Take away ninety percent of that and maybe.” This from Tracy.
“How much control do you have of the slider?” I asked Pender. I had the dawning of a new plan, of course I’d awakened it from a stupor; it was still very confused and bewildered.
“I briefed you on this half a dozen times,” Pender replied without looking away from his console.
“He can drop this thing down a rabbit hole if he needs to,” Tracy replied.
“Colonel, you see that smaller vessel trailing the others? I want Pender to pull up right behind her and take that piece off the board. Fields, fire whatever it takes to make that ship space debris. I also want everything you can spare to rain down on another major Prog center. Can you do that?”
“General this is Master…shit, sorry, Lieutenant Beckert. I think you need to be careful with how many times you use this sliding…”
He couldn’t finish before Pender yelled out: “I already told you this is safe!”
“Colonel?” I asked again, Tracy was going to be my liaison, as I had a habit of checking out of meetings, especially when the board members couldn’t agree.
“It’s not without its risks.”
“Probably should have stayed awake for that part,” BT said, I don’t know if he was referring to me or himself.
“It’s better than being shot down…for the most part, which is definitely about to happen,” she finished.
“Gotta die someway. I want out of here a full minute before anything can hit us.”
“The confidence you instill is damn near inspiring,” BT said.
“Right now, man? Little tense at the moment.”
“Two minutes to impact,” Lane said evenly. On the board, the ordinance coming our way looked like it was already sitting on our laps.
“Beckert, I don’t have power!” Pender shouted.
“Sir, I’m telling you right now, I have my reservations about this.” Beckert was talking to me.
“Ah, Beckert don’t you think you could have brought this to my attention before we were in the midst of a battle?”
“I wasn’t sure about it until now,” he replied.
“Beckert!” Pender shouted.
“Lieutenant! Are you withholding power or do we have a problem?” I asked.
“Sir, I would rather we buckle from here and try again.”
“We can’t. I was awake enough to know that they now have this ship’s signature all geared up and ready to go. That entire armada will be waiting for us the next time we pop out. Beckert, we are five years early; they have no idea what’s going on. We need to punch the living shit out of them right now.”
“One minute.” Lane, who had mostly been calm and collected, was alternating between looking at me, at Beckert and then at her screen in a nervous loop.
“Sir, we can alter the signature.” Beckert was reaching.
“Too late. Any ship they see coming is going to have an a
rmed escort. Beckert give him the goddamned power or you’ll be reporting to Pender directly, indefinitely.”
Pender’s controls lit up. “Might not be all that long of a duty,” he said under his breath.
“Impact in twenty.”
“Pender?”
“Wait one…” he said, raising a finger, not the finger, though I think he may have wanted to.
“I’ll wait eighteen. Then you need to get us out of here,” I told him. We ended up splitting the difference at ten seconds to impact; I felt every single last atom in my body shift to the left. Ever been driving on the highway and you hit an off-ramp entirely too fast and you are being pulled to the side by the force of your speed and the twist of the clover-curved ramp you are on? Your stomach tightens as you white-knuckle the steering wheel, grit your teeth and pray that all four tires stay grounded, or at least two? This was kind of like that, only this time you are going so fast that your body is pressed up against the passenger door, your head has gone through the window and your arms have been stretched like rubber while one hand’s got the wheel and the other’s got the “oh shit” handle, primarily this is in off-road vehicles, gives something concrete for a passenger to hold on to when the driver gets into a particularly difficult ascent.
The end of the slide was even more violent, but not in the way you would think. Apparently, my body had not moved. I didn’t need to force myself back upright and over. The shuddering sideways vertigo had happened all in my head. My brain, drawing on previous experience, I suppose, was convinced we had been going near the speed of light and had applied the brakes so hard that we were now screeching to a sideways halt and had signaled my body accordingly.
“That sucked,” I said quietly. Fields was suffering like the rest of us, his first shots to the rear ship missed wildly. Though, to be fair, the ones he’d sent to the planet were definitely going to hit. Although, really not sure how he could miss a planet. It was like hitting the side of a barn at twenty feet away with a shotgun, but a billion times bigger. His next set of shots delivered, and in a big way. He’d probably hit it with too much. The ship imploded in on itself first as it absorbed all the energy and then it blew out in a maelstrom of fire-laden chunks, most no bigger than a car. Which, considering the size of the ship, was pretty impressive. “One down twelve to go.” The other ships were already turning and ground fire was also coming our way. The Prog response time was impressive, considering, as far as I knew, they were not actively at war–at least not on their home world.
“Again. Tracy, Pender, Fields–northeast quadrant–that large battle ship. It’s all alone. Fields, you can’t afford to miss this time.”
He blew out and shook his head. “Got this, sir.”
“Everyone ready?” I asked.
“Three minutes to impact,” Lane said.
“Now!” I ordered. I’d like to say the horizontal shift and subsequent disequilibrium was better, but it seemed worse. I could only hope that this was not having a cumulative effect on our bodies. There was a jarring jolt and the head splitting sound of metal on metal as we winged that battle ship with our hull. Made Fields’ job a whole hell of a lot easier; he just basically had to start firing to hit it. We were punching holes all along the starboard side as inertia kept us drifting past. Well, “drift” might not be the right word, sounds rather lackadaisical and without power. Compared to the slide though, it was slow; maybe we “cruised” past. We were broadside along the massive Progerian ship. Either we had hit something vital, or they were not quite ready to retaliate, because we were blowing whale sized holes into that vessel’s hull.
“Two minutes to impact!”
There was no doubt about it, we were going to be chased off our prey before we could kill it.
“Lane, help Fields. I want those ground bases that keep firing on us targeted,” I said.
“Right away, sir.”
“BT, I need you to tell me how much time we have.”
“What if I fuck up?” he asked as he brought a clone copy of Lane’s station to his.
“Nobody will be around to call you on it,” I told him.
“Dick.” I want to say he was going for under-his-breath, but it was BT, so who knows. “Sixty minutes!” That he said much too loudly. “Seconds, dammit, I mean: Sixty seconds!”
Lane was shutting down laser stations with a vengeful prejudice, though that did nothing to stop the ones already airborne. We once again lurched to the side; I thought we had slid, though I had not given the order. The battleship across from us had finally begun its defense in earnest. It was too late, as we could see dozens of decks on fire or spewing their contents out into space, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t inflict some sort of wound on us; it’s the injured beast that’s the dangerous one. And since we were an army of one, we could not afford to be crippled. I would not and could not stand toe to toe, even though this opponent was wobbling.
“Slide us now! Same configuration.” I left it up to Tracy which ship she wanted.
Pender didn’t hesitate and we moved–this time though, we had dipped too many times from the same well. As soon as we went into our power slide, every ship began to fire in vectors to maximize the probability of drilling us a new one. Fields stitched a half dozen mortal wounds into what looked like an armed transport ship. We had bursts blowing all around us, even a few making impact.
“Slide away, as far as you can get and still hit the planet.”
I assumed the groaning was my body undergoing the strain; found out differently.
“Sir, Beckert.” Not sure why he needed to announce himself, he was the only one on the monitor.
“Go, Beckert.” I was trying to make my teeth stop swimming around in my head.
“The buckle drive is taking a beating, sir. I don’t know how much more the mounts can take. Could be the next time or three times from now, but they are going to sheer and…”
“Yeah, I get it. Can you brace them? Beef them up? Throw some duct tape on them?”
“This isn’t a leaky gutter, sir.”
“Humor me, Beckert. I’m going to need maybe another dozen slides before this is over.”
“I’ll see what I can do, sir, but I’m going to need more time.”
“Fuck.” I wiped my hand over my brow.
“Ships are converging, Talbot.” BT showed me his display. Wherever they moved it was going to be as a single fist. No more stragglers. That was going to make this exponentially more difficult. “Incoming: four minutes.”
“Lane, open up some channels. See if the Progs are willing to talk.”
Tracy looked over at me, well, probably everyone on the bridge looked at me, but she was the only one I noticed.
“I realize that isn’t on any of the plans we’ve been drilling for, but I need to buy Beckert some time. None of us thought there’d be so many ships or that the ground response would be so quick and have pinpoint accuracy. If I can put any doubt in their minds and stall them just a little while, we’ll be better for it.”
“Keep targeting the planet?” Lane asked.
“Seems a little double-dealing to be whacking them with a stick while asking if they want to talk peace,” I said.
“Sir, we still have incoming,” she replied.
“Colonel, can we propel away from those?”
“Doubtful,” she replied.
“You and Beckert should brush up on your Star Trek lore. They’d be able to get me out of this jam,” I told her.
“Do I look like Uhura?” she asked.
“I wish,” BT said.
“That’s my wife, man.”
“Not if she was Uhura.”
“Fair enough.”
Tracy had us moving away from the ships, and hopefully the planet defenses, when Lane gave me a thumbs up that she had received something. I pointed up, meaning I wanted it on the speakers.
“Battle Class Ship Vicieus this is High Commander Geralt of the Trinal Council. You will cease firing upon Aradinia. Stand
down and prepare to be boarded!” This started again; it was a looped recording. It took us a moment to run it through the computer and translate. There was no reason to think they would know or speak English. Now the question was, would they have the ways and means to translate our reply.
“Lane, make sure our response is translated back to Progerian before you send it.” She nodded. “Put me through.” She gave a thumbs up; I was good to go. “High Commander Geralt this is General Talbot of the United Earth Marines Corps aboard the Earth vessel USS Sentinel. Do not, I repeat, do not attempt to board this ship. You will cease ground activity or I will be forced to eradicate all life on your planet with biological weaponry.”
There was a long pause; the squadron of ten ships was not moving as fast as they had been, but they were still slowly making their way towards us like they were going to act as nonchalant as possible while they snuck up on us and gave us a wallop. I could practically hear them innocently whistling.
“Was I not clear?” I said. “Captain Fields, release the Similac.” I made the universal sign for cut the signal. Lane nodded.
“Similac? You realize that’s baby formula, right?” Tracy asked.
“It’s the first thing I thought of. He’s not going to know.”
“Death by artificial breast milk. That’s a new one. Gives ‘got milk’ a whole new meaning,” BT said.
“Shut up, man.”
“The ships are stationary,” Tracy said. “The munitions have stopped as well. General, we’re going to need to do one more slide to avoid what’s already on the way.”
“Beckert?”
“I heard, sir. You should be alright, but I’m not going to warranty the work.”
“Shyster mechanic shops, can’t trust them. Pender, get us clear.”
“Thirty seconds,” Lane announced.
Felt that tug again. You’d think I’d be getting used to it, far from the case. I was dreading the movement. We sat in our new position for a couple of minutes; absolutely nothing happened, though I could hear Beckert over his monitor speaker swearing in the background.
